Current Events > Is Blizzard's place as a top gaming company starting to decline?

(+) Yeah! (+)

After the recent fiasco with Warcraft 3 Reforged, what are your thoughts on Blizzard's place as a top gaming company?

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they've been declining before wc3 reforged

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Starting?

Lmao.

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Funkydog posted...

Starting?

Lmao.

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Top LOL, they haven't even close to that in 10 years +.

Spooking posted...

This. They capped out at WotLK. Downhill ever since.

man we twinsies. Wotlk was amazing.

Spooking posted...

This. They capped out at WotLK. Downhill ever since.

Legion was pretty good.

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They already are not a top gaming company.

Their last release as one was Wings of Liberty.

It was all downhill after thay.

Although, I admit overwatch was a bit of an anomaly, it was still a greedy cash grab.

Their last good game was Warcraft 3.

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Stagmar posted...

Their last good game was Warcraft 3.

Lol people ITT hating on WoW

Blizzard has never been at the top

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darkphoenix181 posted...

Lol people ITT hating on WoW

Played it for the free month when it first came out. Never had an urge to touch it again.

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Funkydog posted...

Starting?

Lmao.

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darkphoenix181 posted...

They already are not a top gaming company.

Their last release as one was Wings of Liberty.

It was all downhill after thay.

Although, I admit overwatch was a bit of an anomaly, it was still a greedy cash grab.

Revitalizing the team shooter genre is hardly a cash grab wtf

People love to shit on Overwatch now but EVERYONE was playing it when it came out

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It's been on the decline for a while.

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Alpha218 posted...

Revitalizing the team shooter genre is hardly a cash grab wtf

People love to shit on Overwatch now but EVERYONE was playing it when it came out

Lootboxes.

Alpha218 posted...

Revitalizing the team shooter genre is hardly a cash grab wtf

People love to shit on Overwatch now but EVERYONE was playing it when it came out

It sounds like you are misunderstanding why people call it a cash grab. Doesnt really have much if anything at all to do with the genre or gameplay.

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Blizzard's entire development scheme is to take existing ips and give them expensive polish with shallow gameplay.

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MrPeppers posted...

It sounds like you are misunderstanding why people call it a cash grab. Doesnt really have much if anything at all to do with the genre or gameplay.

The loot boxes were stupid yes, but I have also seen it attacked for virtue signaling and pandering because it has a diverse cast

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Funkydog posted...

Starting?

Lmao.

Funkydog posted...

Starting?

Lmao.

Came in to post this

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Alpha218 posted...

I have also seen it attacked for virtue signaling and pandering because it has a diverse cast

What does that have to do with anything?

I think they should be worried about WoW. BFA is a failure in basically every respect. Shadowlands might turn it around, but they're going to have to either remove or drastically change a lot of systems I think they're heavily invested in. I've personally not seen much hype for it either.

Hearthstone is actually doing alright. A long-time issue is that it stagnates pretty hard between expansions. For the last year or so, they've done a good job of shaking things up. Faster nerfs, bringing cards out of the wild format, putting those cards back when they horribly broke things, introducing a couple dozen new cards a month or two after an expansion, etc. That plus the battlegrounds mode puts it in a decent spot.

I don't think they're doing anything with SC and Diablo, right?

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WoW's decline at least kind of makes sense. it's a 15 year old game and at this point the best way for blizzard to retain players is to bombard them with gigantic amounts of busy work and meaningless content only made palatable by the possibility of reward.in order to distract from the fact that their game at its core is old as fuck and not very engaging

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No, China will always love them.

For me personally blizzards been om the decline ever since SC2 HotS.

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darkphoenix181 posted...

Lootboxes.

Cosmetic only items that you get just by playing the game

i have every cosmetic item for every hero without ever spending a cent. So many coins lying around that I can buy 3-4 legendary skins if I dont get them during an event

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Your personal opinion of them may have been declining for a long time, but their following was strong until recently. Blizzard fans love Blizzard and Blizzard games, and the majority of them didn't turn their back right away. Battle for Azeroth hurt that base, and Diablo Immortal is what finally made the majority upset. The Hong Kong bans and Warcraft 3 Reforged is part of their ongoing descent.

Punctus_Pilot posted...

Your personal opinion of them may have been declining for a long time, but their following was strong until recently. Blizzard fans love Blizzard and Blizzard games, and the majority of them didn't turn their back right away. Battle for Azeroth hurt that base, and Diablo Immortal is what finally made the majority upset. The Hong Kong bans and Warcraft 3 Reforged is part of their ongoing descent.

Well said.

Thanks for that perspective.

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I mean, Overwatch is popular, but other than that, what has made them a "top gaming company" in say, the current console cycle. And I really don't see Overwatch giving them enough credit to make that claim. WoW at this point is just trucking along at its own pace practically detached from the general gaming landscape. Is it even attracted significant new playerbases?
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DeadBankerDream posted...

I mean, Overwatch is popular, but other than that, what has made them a "top gaming company" in say, the current console cycle. And I really don't see Overwatch giving them enough credit to make that claim. WoW at this point is just trucking along at its own pace practically detached from the general gaming landscape. Is it even attracted significant new playerbases?

It didn't really need new playerbases. WoW was going strong until BfA, even if it had been reduced by a bit. A massive amount of people still play the shit out of Hearthstone. It's quick, it's simple, and you can play it anywhere. Maintaining their ongoing titles has always been their business model, adding something new to the family every 5 years or so. Overwatch was a massive success. With the way Blizzard runs and the way their fanbase is, that's all they needed. But recently the core fanbase, which had previously been unrelentingly loyal, is forsaking them. That's what TC and others are referring to as "their decline."

This is coming from someone that's spent maybe 2 hours cumulatively playing Blizzard games ever. I recognize their place and influence in the industry though.

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i dont fallow WoW newst what is it that pissed people off there?

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Hearthstone has been nose diving
WoW has been mostly bad since Cataclysm
They kicked HotS to the curb
Diablo has had it rough (though I like D3 tbh)
SC2 was clearly not on the level of SC1

They've been going downhill for a while now.

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AceMos posted...

i dont fallow WoW newst what is it that pissed people off there?

Xenton76 points1 year agoedited 1 year ago
Everything up to the end game is good, but the end game is about the worst it's ever been.
In addition to that, this is a small list of some of the problems that are frequently discussed on this subreddit:

• A lot of minor and major bugs, some of which get fixed, some overlooked.
• Exploits are being dealt with unpredictably; some people get banned, some people get ignored, some people get exploited rewards removed.
• Warfronts have been uneven for both sides, though arguably neccesarily so; Alliance got two shots at world boss in the first hour and first chance at control, while horde got access to warfronts before the item level cap (Allowing fastest gearing of alts basically ever seen) and a 370 item.
• Since release, warfronts have become completely uninteresting; They're uninteresting and repeditive and, even when half the group isn't AFK, end up being slow paced and long. They seem to exist as a relatively efficient way to gear up alts, and that's about it.
• Blizzard realising mistakes well after the fact, rather than taking beta tester feedback.
• A lot of concerns going into BFA were met with throaway remarks like, paraphrased, "You think you know what you want, but you don't, we do".
• Classes lost a lot of abilities, Marksman for example is down to a 4 button rotation. This also came after losing tier bonuses and artifact weapons which were both somewhat, though ineffectively, replaced via azerite powers.
• Due to scaling azerite power multipliers each week, azerite power grinding is effectively time gated and all but impossible to grind past a certain level. But on the other side of the coin, all your effort today would get you double the reward in just a couple of weeks.
• Azerite gear has removed the simplicity of gearing up without adding interesting nuance; combined with the previous point this means that getting new, exciting gear is often a downgrade to your current dungeon set as you can't access the abilities on it.
• Huge balance patches without addressing the actual issues, such as some of the previous points, leading to farmed and valuable gear one week being turned into vendor trash the next. Balance is good, but when Azerite Traits are being buffed or nerfed by 40% or more, it leads to frustration. This has slowed down to an extent, but severely impacted player's interest in farming azerite gear.
• The faction conflict, one of the keystones lorewise of this entire expansion, is basically irrelevant to what we're doing and underfocused in quests, world quests and dungeons.
• The alliance has no real idea why we're killing diseased entities in uldir.
• Horde base is a vertical labyrinth that is awkward to navigate and wastes time to traverse.
• Levelling has been made into a slow and drudging experience. Even upcoming changes don't look to improve it by much.
• The way azerite gear is being handled is frustratingly inconsistent; It doesn't drop in mythic+ but does drop in mythic+ weekly chests, it doesn't roll bonus levels or stats, it contributes to item level, but has a lower weighting than other pieces, etc etc.
• Garrison/Classhall/Faction Boat(?) missions are more perfunctory and less interesting or worthwhile than ever. They also feature nonsense like 24 hour missions for 3 champions, 80 war resources and a reward of 80 gold.
• While horde has had a number of interesting mounts this expansion, the alliance got 3 different horse recolours.
• The cost of recipes + Repairs + gold inflation after legion bringing up the price of consumables means that anyone who didn't cash up at the end of legion is now seriously struggling with day to day costs, especially new players looking to raid.
• Warmode is an ongoing source of contention with horde lamenting the loss of PvP and alliance being outnumbered hugely. This in turn leads to the only world PvP that occurs being 25 man gank squads killing solo players.
• World quests provide fewer rewards than they did in legion, while taking longer to complete and being less varied and interesting. There are also no PvP related world quests.
• Without Legendaries, Curious Coins or Mounts to be obtained from Emissary quests, players rapidly reach the point where there's no reason to bother completing them, as the rewards are mediocre and rarely worth the effort.
• Island expeditions are about the worst possible implementation of a potentially interesting form of content; between multiple layers of RNG, each island run feeling the same as every other run and the "rush-rush-rush" nature of the mode, they're frustrating to play.
• As a means to acquire Azerite Power, islands are just awful; a 10 minute run nets less than 1% of a level, even at mythic difficulty, for a lot of players.

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Funkydog posted...

Starting?

Lmao.

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DarkChozoGhost posted...

It didn't really need new playerbases. WoW was going strong until BfA, even if it had been reduced by a bit. A massive amount of people still play the shit out of Hearthstone. It's quick, it's simple, and you can play it anywhere. Maintaining their ongoing titles has always been their business model, adding something new to the family every 5 years or so. Overwatch was a massive success. With the way Blizzard runs and the way their fanbase is, that's all they needed. But recently the core fanbase, which had previously been unrelentingly loyal, is forsaking them. That's what TC and others are referring to as "their decline."

This is coming from someone that's spent maybe 2 hours cumulatively playing Blizzard games ever. I recognize their place and influence in the industry though.

Pretty accurate here.


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DarkChozoGhost posted...

But recently the core fanbase, which had previously been unrelentingly loyal, is forsaking them. That's what TC and others are referring to as "their decline."

Previously loyal fans noticed that Activision has been digging their fingers deeper and deeper into the pie that is Blizzard is the reason. To the point where it isn't Blizzard anymore.

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LightHawKnight posted...

Previously loyal fans noticed that Activision has been digging their fingers deeper and deeper into the pie that is Blizzard is the reason. To the point where it isn't Blizzard anymore.

A tale as old as time in the corporate world.

Just case #4080 of a big corporation absorbing a smaller one and slowly turning them into a soulless shell of itself because of corporate greed.

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LightHawKnight posted...

Xenton76 points1 year agoedited 1 year ago
Everything up to the end game is good, but the end game is about the worst it's ever been.
In addition to that, this is a small list of some of the problems that are frequently discussed on this subreddit:
* A lot of minor and major bugs, some of which get fixed, some overlooked.
* Exploits are being dealt with unpredictably; some people get banned, some people get ignored, some people get exploited rewards removed.
* Warfronts have been uneven for both sides, though arguably neccesarily so; Alliance got two shots at world boss in the first hour and first chance at control, while horde got access to warfronts before the item level cap (Allowing fastest gearing of alts basically ever seen) and a 370 item.
* Since release, warfronts have become completely uninteresting; They're uninteresting and repeditive and, even when half the group isn't AFK, end up being slow paced and long. They seem to exist as a relatively efficient way to gear up alts, and that's about it.
* Blizzard realising mistakes well after the fact, rather than taking beta tester feedback.
* A lot of concerns going into BFA were met with throaway remarks like, paraphrased, "You think you know what you want, but you don't, we do".
* Classes lost a lot of abilities, Marksman for example is down to a 4 button rotation. This also came after losing tier bonuses and artifact weapons which were both somewhat, though ineffectively, replaced via azerite powers.
* Due to scaling azerite power multipliers each week, azerite power grinding is effectively time gated and all but impossible to grind past a certain level. But on the other side of the coin, all your effort today would get you double the reward in just a couple of weeks.
* Azerite gear has removed the simplicity of gearing up without adding interesting nuance; combined with the previous point this means that getting new, exciting gear is often a downgrade to your current dungeon set as you can't access the abilities on it.
* Huge balance patches without addressing the actual issues, such as some of the previous points, leading to farmed and valuable gear one week being turned into vendor trash the next. Balance is good, but when Azerite Traits are being buffed or nerfed by 40% or more, it leads to frustration. This has slowed down to an extent, but severely impacted player's interest in farming azerite gear.
* The faction conflict, one of the keystones lorewise of this entire expansion, is basically irrelevant to what we're doing and underfocused in quests, world quests and dungeons.
* The alliance has no real idea why we're killing diseased entities in uldir.
* Horde base is a vertical labyrinth that is awkward to navigate and wastes time to traverse.
* Levelling has been made into a slow and drudging experience. Even upcoming changes don't look to improve it by much.
* The way azerite gear is being handled is frustratingly inconsistent; It doesn't drop in mythic+ but does drop in mythic+ weekly chests, it doesn't roll bonus levels or stats, it contributes to item level, but has a lower weighting than other pieces, etc etc.
* Garrison/Classhall/Faction Boat(?) missions are more perfunctory and less interesting or worthwhile than ever. They also feature nonsense like 24 hour missions for 3 champions, 80 war resources and a reward of 80 gold.
* While horde has had a number of interesting mounts this expansion, the alliance got 3 different horse recolours.
* The cost of recipes + Repairs + gold inflation after legion bringing up the price of consumables means that anyone who didn't cash up at the end of legion is now seriously struggling with day to day costs, especially new players looking to raid.
* Warmode is an ongoing source of contention with horde lamenting the loss of PvP and alliance being outnumbered hugely. This in turn leads to the only world PvP that occurs being 25 man gank squads killing solo players.
* World quests provide fewer rewards than they did in legion, while taking longer to complete and being less varied and interesting. There are also no PvP related world quests.
* Without Legendaries, Curious Coins or Mounts to be obtained from Emissary quests, players rapidly reach the point where there's no reason to bother completing them, as the rewards are mediocre and rarely worth the effort.
* Island expeditions are about the worst possible implementation of a potentially interesting form of content; between multiple layers of RNG, each island run feeling the same as every other run and the "rush-rush-rush" nature of the mode, they're frustrating to play.
* As a means to acquire Azerite Power, islands are just awful; a 10 minute run nets less than 1% of a level, even at mythic difficulty, for a lot of players.

I knew it was bad but didnt know it was this bad.

Ive tried to play BFA many times but it just doesnt feel good.

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they deserve a lot of flak, but unfortunately blizzard has become another target for gamer chuds to attack mindlessly for every possible thing

there are people who actually think blizzard sabotaged WoW Classic out of spite and bitterness

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I'd say they're in big decline, but they're too big to fail. They're kinda like Gamefreak in that no matter how badly they fuck up, millions of people would still preorder a turd squashed into a game case as long as it has their brand name on it.

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